Answering T's Questions - 1
"For example, suppose you meet a person who is otherwise ideal for you, but that person has very poor credit and has declared bankruptcy in the past, and even though he somehow always manages to get by, while living a life of frightening financial insecurity?"
"Would you be willing to have that person as a mate, but keep your accounts separate so you could be together?"
This is a good question. First of all, I am living frugally on a low income myself. So I am more likely to be rejected myself for not meeting someone's financial requirements.
But I can cope, I have never in my life had any debts nor have I ever bought anything on credit. I also can cope, because I have many skills to repair and make things myself and save money, also I am capable to endure discomfort when this is a way of avoiding expenses.
Therefore, T's question has several aspects in an answer.
1. I would not marry someone, who has debts. That is too high a risk to my own survival. But as long as someone is allowed to live in Germany without getting married, this is a different situation to be looked at.
2. It depends, if someone's requirements and entitlements to a comfortable standard of living are in sync with his income.
Example 1: The scenario is a couple arriving late at night at a bus station at the outskirts of a town in a warm country and it is a warm night. They have provisions to eat and drink, there is a waiting room open all night and there is a toilet.
They have two options. They can either spend the rest of the night in that waiting room and take the first bus in the morning to the hostel, where they were planning to stay. Or they can take a taxi, ask the driver to bring them to a hotel and pay whatever it costs.
In accordance with my own needs and priorities, I would feel perfectly fine to spend the night in the bus station. I enjoy traveling so much, that I prefer to invest my money in longer times of traveling with less comfort.
2.1. That means that if someone has also a low income, and he considers it a part of the adventure of traveling together to share a night in a bus station, all is well. He may even experience such adventures as romantic and as adding to feeling close, just as I would.
2.2. I am not a gold digger, but if someone is financially comfortable and we are compatible, I have to acknowledge his right to invest his own income in his comfort, and if he rather shares it with me then share my frugal discomfort, I have no right to object.
2.3. But if somebody is on a tight budget himself, and we share the expenses of traveling, and he then insists on investing the shared resources in his comfort, then this man is not suitable for me. When I want to stay in the bus station, but that man intimidates me with anger to take a taxi to an expensive hotel, and he thus forcefully wastes my share of the expenses for what I do not need, this is an outrage.
Example 2. A certain amount of money is enough for either option one of eating in an expensive restaurant, or for option two of eating in a cheap restaurant plus the entrance fee to an interesting museum. While the expensive restaurant is available at the moment of feeling hungry, the cheap restaurant requires to walk around searching for an hour. So walking around hungry for an hour earns the visit to the museum. Again, for me there is not a moment's doubt, that the visit of a museum is worth an hour of being hungry.
Like in the first example, there are the three possibilities of the partner's attitude and behavior.
2.1. I feel perfectly fine with someone, who is on a low budget and who agrees, that a museum is worth an hour of feeling hungry, and who makes no fuss about being hungry.
2.2. I am willing to accept, if someone, who can afford it, wants to eat, when he is hungry.
2.3. I feel outrage, if someone, who is on a low budget, coerces me into an expensive restaurant, when I have to pay half of the wasted money myself.
My mindmate is someone, whose subjective needs and feelings of entitlement to spend money on comfort is in sync with his income, and who does not force me to waste my money. My mindmate is an Epicurean and not a Hedonist, therefore when money is limited, he agrees that money is better spent on immaterial values like intellectual experiences and not on physical comfort.
